


Into the Mist

by parttimestoryteller



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Author, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Poverty, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Writer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-16 10:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5824855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parttimestoryteller/pseuds/parttimestoryteller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Struggling author Phil starts a new life in London looking for publication, where he meets Dan, a similarly broke waiter in a dingy coffee shop. But London, much like Dan, is built on celluloid dreams.<br/>Inspired by/based on Ask the Dust by John Fante.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

London was in every wisp of smoke, every rumble of traffic and every voice that swept into the sky with the rising smog. It filled Phil's heart and lifted him to the tops of the highest buildings. He was consumed within the city and his life was about to begin.

It was the shade of blue that filled 60’s hospital rooms and student halls and run down nursery carpets that were threadbare and stained with vomit and food and ground in dirt from tiny shoes. For Phil, it would be home. The hostel had two single rooms unoccupied. Phil chose the one whose window had a few centimetres of view that wasn't the drainpipe of the concrete apartment building adjacent.

Perhaps Phil should have halved his rent and lived in a dormitory, but he was giddy with the £2300 in his bank account and he would need the privacy to write. Nothing quashed the creative flow like the hot breath of an observer over the shoulder.

Carefully, he set his laptop on the plywood desk, settling himself at the desk to ensure the angle was correct. His bag lay unpacked on the plastic coated mattress and his shoes kicked off at the door. Trivial items; this laptop was the reason he was here. With his fingers and the keys he would make words dance off the pages and money drip from the ceiling ‘til he could buy up the entire hostel building and develop it into flats, with the exception of this room, which would be preserved in its exact state for sentimental value and as a tourist attraction, perhaps for aspiring young writers visiting the city.

How long it would take of course Phil couldn't say, but he had done the calculations and knew he could survive a good few months in a hostel, and his last story had taken him mere days to write and perfect. With those numbers, by the time the two months he had paid forward were up he would have enough money to get his very own apartment in London’s vast city centre.

Phil stroked his fingers across the keys. He would make a cup of tea, light a scented candle, and get started. There was no haste to unpack, for he'd only brought one case which was mostly clothes and books anyway. He paused. Perhaps there was one book that needed freeing before he could truly start his career as a writer. Phil unzipped his case and took the thin paperback gingerly from the top of the vaguely folded pile of clothes. He stroked the shiny cover with a reverent sigh, flicking automatically to a page that had been opened a hundred times before. There it was. Short story four: Of Fires Lit and Candles Dimmed, by P. M. Lester.

It looked very small on the empty shelf, but soon, Phil hoped, it would be full. Satisfied that he was now ready to be a writer in the great city of London, Phil searched for a teabag and padded barefoot to the kitchen.

*

The morning was cold. The sun had pushed through winter’s veil with the first green buds of spring, but the north winds still had the bite of January in their icy teeth, and they whipped through the channels in the tall buildings, catching at coat hems and knocking the air out of chests. Phil wished he had worn a jacket. But it was his first real day as a Londoner, and he knew the sun would have warmed the granite paving slabs by mid-day.

Phil pushed on quickly through the shivers. He was on a mission, a mission shared by every writer. It was time to find the perfect coffee shop.

He didn’t expect to find it straight away, of course. He fully expected to try a thousand, and perhaps capture the essence of some of his favourites in his stories. How could he know what environment would make his writing bloom? Perhaps it would be somewhere dingy, rundown and quiet; or perhaps it would be the vast, open spaces of some of London’s trendier tea rooms. Right now, he was hoping for quirky. And cosy too, he thought, plunging his blue fingers into his coat pockets.

The first café/diner, Joe’s or Bill’s or Fred’s or something, had the radio up far too loud for sensible thought. Phil left without even taking his laptop out of his bag. The next two on this particular street were big chain coffee shops, a Starbucks and a Café Nero, that Phil had sworn to avoid. London was the biggest city in the country. Its population alone was twice that of the whole of New Zealand. If he couldn’t find an independent coffee shop he liked here, he might as well give up all together.

The Columbia was too hot and A Taste of Hackney expensive. Phil had known when moving to London without much money that he’d have to choose either the East, which was poor, or the South, which was rough. He’d gone as far inner East as he dared, and it showed in the sparkling artisan cake shop nestled between two grubby shop fronts, and the All Saints directly backing onto a pawn shop and a Ladbrokes.

He ordered a coffee in The Rose Petal but couldn’t manage a single word, and the tea in Cabot Corner tasted like wet grass.

Phil had been moving steadily towards Covent Garden, but after a brief glance into the Hackney Coffee Company he quickly baulked at the prices and struck out South. Perhaps it would be off the beaten track that he found his writing haven. He’d like that. It would be a story tell, he’d make Cramped Little Writing Hole, a struggling, family-run business, boom with success once everyone heard how the novel of the century was typed in its entirety in one cosy corner.

Happy in his daydream, Phil kept walking even as the sun rolled steadily down towards the skyscrapered skyline.

*

“Are you done with that?”

Phil started, looking up and taking a moment to focus on the tall waiter in front of him.

“Yes, thank you,” he said hurriedly. “Can I get, uh, a cake?” Phil squinted towards the counter. He’d taken off his glasses because they were often more hindrance than help when looking at close objects like his computer screen.

“Which one?”

The teenager was clearly bored, and was not about to help Phil out. “Have you got anything chocolate? No nuts, though.” Phil did his best to sound adult and authoritative. He was a writer. This was what he did.

The brown-haired boy nodded without a word and slouched off to prepare whatever overpriced baked good Phil was using to justify his rent of this spindly corner table. Phil had wanted the window seat, but there was no power point and his laptop could barely scrape an hour of battery. He looked back at the screen. He still hadn’t written anything, but at least now he was doing some research and brainstorming. Ideas for short stories in one column, novellas in the next and the final column would be for his debut, full length novel. That one would take a while. What was important now was paying the rent.

The coffee shop was small and unimpressive. It had been more of a last resort than a moment of destiny, but at least he was doing something to justify the now nearly £25 he’d spent on overpriced hot water around Hackney. He was tired and cold and just needed to sit down. Eden’s Coffee Emporium had an overzealous name for such an unimpressive little shop, but at least it was cheap. The chairs were rough wood but the tablecloths weren’t plastic, thank god. The coffee was average and the ambient chatter a little too intermittent. Bursts of silence were far more distracting than noise.

Phil cast his eyes once more around the room. Perhaps he would incorporate it into his tale but not likely as the walls were cream and the décor bland. It reminded Phil of over milky tea that had been left too long and developed a thin layer of scum at the surface, for while the beige tables and brown chairs were obviously wiped down semi-regularly, the bends in the ceiling housed cobwebs and the corners of the laminated floor were piled high with dust and dirt.

The teenager brought out Phil’s cake. It was nicer than he was expecting, or maybe he was just hungry. He opened another blank word document and copied the little section of storyboard that he’d typed up. He frowned. There wasn’t much, and there certainly wasn’t anywhere to start. Where would the audience first meet the protagonist? He started to type, but quickly deleted it. The beginning of any story was the most important part. It had to draw the reader in immediately, and keep them there. It had to be original and gripping and avoid any of the clichés. And of course, all of this was far easier said than done.

First, the protagonist was introduced at home, preparing his dinner. It was quirky and intriguingly described, but it quickly trickled out into the mundane. Phil deleted it.

Then, Bill, a miserly pensioner living alone in the suburbs, was found in the local park, mid-argument with an obnoxious dog owner; but that soon became overrun with dialogue.

Bill doing his shopping, Bill filling out his council tax, Bill on the run from an imaginary police force… it just wasn’t the story that was in Phil’s head.

Perhaps the problem was more that there wasn’t a story in his head. No plot points at least. He knew what he wanted it to be, a satirical, subtle and engaging take on old age in a city built on youth and ambition. People would smile quietly to themselves as they read it, and the ending would be deliciously ambiguous. It would be a perfect short for a magazine or another collective, he just needed to write it first.

He left frustrated and angry. He didn’t tip the boy who’d served him, and glared at him on the way out. He wouldn’t be returning. The teenager stared back with such insolent apathy that Phil slammed the door behind him, in an even fouler mood. The brown-haired boy was probably laughing at Phil, some wannabe writer trying so clearly in vain to put words on a screen. Little did he know that Phil was already a writer, with his very own editor and slot in a respectable publishing company. Maybe one day Phil would return and drop a copy of one of his bestselling novels in the sparse bookshelf at the back of the shop, just to show him.

Two days later, Phil was back in the Emporium. It was maddening, but so far it was the only place he’d managed to write a single word. Even his own room was proving impossible. The traffic noise was driving him slowly insane and the crash of drunk kids stumbling home from their first night out in London prevented even those coveted late night writing bursts.

Every sentence was garbage, but at least he was writing. He ordered another coffee for £1.50 and took a bite of an apple. He started to read over some of the earlier paragraphs, but quickly stopped himself for fear of slipping into a rage of self-hate and scrapping it all. It didn’t matter if what he was writing was bad, he had to get over this writing block.

Around noon, Phil took a break and went shopping. He needed a better wardrobe if he was going to be taken seriously in this vast expanse of life. He had an idea of what he wanted to look like, a little eccentric and quirky, perhaps a recluse, people would wonder, but still approachable. He wanted tweed, but didn’t think he was quite cool enough to pull it off at the young age of twenty-one. He was no hipster. He really should ditch the skinny jeans, though. Tolkein certainly didn’t wear skinny jeans, nor Fante nor Hemmingway and not even today’s writers like Stephen King or Dan Brown. Writers were far too sophisticated for space print bomber jackets as well.

One suit later and Phil knew he wasn’t going to be doing this on his own. He called Sophie, and met her fifteen minutes later outside a Costa.

“You’re shopping in the wrong places, you’re not going to find quirky in Topman. Come on.”

She took Phil to the vintage markets and they spent several hours sifting through clothes that smelled like old people and the occasional concerning taxidermy. They found a coffee shop over three poky floors that was furnished with rocking chairs and boxes and old computers and cushy armchairs and 60’s bar stools and huge wooden trunks. The décor was entirely film references and was indefinitely warm, but Phil knew he’d have to get quite a bit richer before he could make this bizarre little place his home.

They sat on a bench piled high with cushions underneath a huge Starship Enterprise suspended from the ceiling. Parachuting down from an open hatch in the belly of the ship were twenty odd Lego Harry Potter characters.

“If money gets tight you’re always welcome to come sleep on our sofa. I promise it’s no trouble.” Sophie offered gently.

Phil had only mentioned money a few times, but obviously the strain was apparent in his tone. “No, I won’t need to do that,” he insisted. “I have savings to last me a while, and if I have to I can ask my parents. I want to do this properly. By myself, you know.”

“Don’t be stupid. No one goes from nothing to everything without any help. That’s what friends are for. We lift each other up. Don’t let your pride make you suffer.” Sophie patted Phil’s arm as she sipped her £3 hot chocolate.

Phil smiled wryly. Sophie had PJ, she wasn’t trying to make it on her own. She didn’t understand. Nothing to everything was exactly what Phil wanted, not least because it would look so admirable in his Wikipedia biography.

“Thanks. I’d say we should hang out soon, but I can’t afford anything like dinner. How about a picnic? I’m doing a lot of writing at the moment, because the publishing process takes so long, you know? It can be ages before you see any money in the bank.” Phil paused, checking himself and toning it down a little. “I just mean I’m going to do as much as possible until I’m a little more financially secure, but after that you’re going to be seeing so much of me you throw up just at the sound of my name.”

Sophie laughed, and Phil took a £1 sized bite out of his dry, nutty brownie.

*

The hostel was very cold at night. The heating went off at eleven sharp, and came on again in the morning from seven until nine. Phil didn’t usually come home ‘til post-midnight and never got up before eleven, so he was perpetually clad in fluffy socks and an ugly Christmas jumper that kept out the worst of the draft that shivered its way in through the single glazed sash window.

He had three regular coffee shops and one park if the sun was feeling particularly kind, although his laptop battery was less forgiving. Writing outside was very nice, what with the birdsong and ambient children’s laughter, but it really wasn’t worth the effort. By the time Phil had got settled he only had half an hour of comfortable writing time, because the last fifteen minutes were spent anxiously saving every half paragraph for fear of sudden battery death and loss of the Best Thing Ever Written.

The Emporium was miserable but cheap, and then there was Uncle Mike’s which was often too noisy or too choked by the smell of grilling bacon. Finally there was the Swallowtail, quiet, quirky, niche, pricey. Phil would buy one thing there and stay as long as he dared. If he caught the glare of the owner too many times he would have to leave with his tail between his legs and head for Mike’s, but more often than not he wouldn’t even sit down, knowing that he wouldn’t last long before having to leave. The quiet hours were weekday afternoons, except Thursday, when a nearby secondary school let the older students go early.

The Emporium was where Phil would settle himself when all else failed. In the three weeks he had lived in London he didn’t even have half a story, and he was starting to panic.

There were two regular waiters at this beige hell, and occasionally Phil would see the owner – presumably Eden herself. She didn’t seem to care much for coffee, and always had a Pepsi in her hand. She would come downstairs, complain about something, take something chocolatey from the counter and head back up, slamming the door behind her.

Phil had tried to make conversation with one of the waiters once and had been rewarded with an incredulous blink and a shrug. They were both younger than Phil, a boy and a girl, but were here too often to be in school. The boy was tall and gangly and didn’t seem to appreciate Phil’s near constant presence, and the girl was blonde and would smile if she caught Phil’s gaze. Phil hoped he’d be rich enough soon to find somewhere better.

In the afternoon Phil went to a flea market to find something weird and old and cheap for his room. He bought a cuckoo clock for £7 and a decorative magnifying glass for £2.50, then he went to Tesco. His shop came in at £11. He spent another £2 on the bus home because it was suddenly very cold and his bags were heavy. With the £5 he’d spent in coffee shops trying to write, he’d spent £25.50. He had less than £300 left in his account. He needed to be careful. Maybe he would be writing at home for a while, at least until he’d got something finished and sent off to his editor.

The sun had fallen out of the sky and the moon had swept up to take its place. There were probably stars, but the orange glow of city lights blocked out any hope of constellations. Phil lay back on the papery sheets and stared at the ceiling. Things would look up. London was the city of opportunity. Something would happen, and inspiration would find Phil and sweep him up to join the hustle and bustle of the vast and undulating metropolis.


	2. Chapter Two

The communal lounge, generously referred to as the ‘games room’, had a bookshelf against one wall, and Phil would check each time he passed if any of the three copies of his story had been removed, or at least budged an inch. As of one month not one volume had shifted, but Phil remained hopeful. There was also a copy on one of the coffee tables, as if set down by someone after reading avidly, but that had similarly failed to hook any fish.

It was the clientele of Riverside Youth Hostel (which was, misleadingly, a good fifteen minute walk from the Thames), Phil argued. Mostly foreigners or young, poor people looking for somewhere to crash after a night out in London. These people were not here to pass time with reading.

He had left a few more in some the many coffee shops he had visited, and could settle himself happily in the knowledge that, statistically, a lot of people must have read it by now. He didn’t have time to check, though. Because he had one month left to make enough money to pay the next month’s rent.

Breakfast he never ate in the hostel diner. That was an expense he could avoid, eating dry cereal and fruit. With no fridge or cooking facilities however, lunch and dinner were different stories. A £1.50 ham and lettuce sandwich got him between the hours of twelve and two, then a 40p barbeque instant noodle from the Tesco across the road took him through to four. He spent £3 on the coffee and cake deal in Bill’s and returned to the hostel at eight to fill his rumbling stomach with £3.50 sausage and mash from the diner.

Phil wished he could afford more fruit and veg. He was tired a lot of the time, and his skin was starting to break out. But with no fridge or freezer he could only keep fruit like apples and oranges in his room, which was expensive, or buy vegetable portions from the diner, which was even worse.

For a long time now Phil had been trying to build up the courage to strike up conversation with one of the many homeless begging on London’s grimy streets. Surely that would give him a story. A tragic tale, heartbreak and loss and the inevitable slip into poverty due to drug abuse. It would hit hard and hit home, and with the proceeds he could return to the individual and lift them generously back into civilised life, to the praise and adoration of all.

He knew he would probably have to offer a lot of money to get a good story, as he was sure these people would be plagued regularly by similar endeavours. An article for a university newspaper or an art piece or a song; when inspiration proved evasive it would have to be acquired rather than grown.

Phil had a few potential candidates. The amputees that pitched up around the parks and outside the museums and anywhere else that tourists might spawn were a no go. These were mostly career beggars. They could earn more from the sympathetic public than they could from disability benefits or the pitiful, low wage jobs pushed by government incentives. And besides, these were the homeless hotspots – they were probably asked a thousand times a day and told a different story each time just to keep themselves amused.

But there was an addict under the railway bridge that Phil walked home through every night and a girl in the alley beside Bill’s that looked very young. En route to the Emporium, Phil would pass a very old man who talked nonsense to the brickwork, but occasionally Phil would catch snippets of war and bombings and death. And finally there were the couple that cuddled away each night in the doorway of a bordered up shop with their two dogs and one ferret. They didn’t look like drug addicts or psychos. They looked cold and sad.

Phil pulled his pyjama shirt over his head and poured steaming water into his hot water bottle. For good measure, he slipped into a jumper too. He didn’t shower at night because his wet hair would feel like it was freezing to his pillow, and there usually wasn’t any hot water left anyway. He sighed miserably, closed his eyes, and shivered.

*

Phil usually didn’t wake up early enough to see London’s morning mists, but today was an exception. His room was on the seventh floor. Most of the view was concrete wall thick with mildew, but on the far right of his window was a slither of London. The grey fog dipped in pools of orange and yellow around car lights and streetlights and each window pinpricking the side of a tall building. It seemed to dull the noise of the city, seeping even into Phil’s room and filling him with a strange calmness. Everything was still and faded.

Phil got dressed slowly. He’d had less than six hours sleep, but something was calling him up and out. He wanted to walk amidst this strange white veil. A voice in the back of his head screamed triumphantly that this feeling could finally result in inspiration, but the front was less convinced. The draw was more likely the need to break a desperate monotony that had been building in Phil’s chest and threatening to overthrow him and plunge him into despair.

The moisture condensed on the window pains and ran down in rivulets into the gutters. The people moving on the street below where shadows. Phil pulled his coat on and headed for the lift.

Dampness clung to Phil’s skin and he pulled his hood up to protect his hair. It was as cold as it looked. Despite the morning sun, every car had lit headlights and the brake lights reflected an eerie red glow off the particles of water and up into the sky. A seagull cried harshly and a pigeon scuffed at Phil’s feet, narrowly avoiding a kick. Phil started, pulling his gaze down to look where he was going. The mist looked so thick in the distance, as if he wasn’t in it at all but heading towards it. Without thinking, his feet had taken him to Eden’s Coffee Emporium and he slipped inside, taking his hood down and shaking the water from his jacket.

The blonde waitress was putting menus out on the tables and she smiled at Phil. He took a moment to smile back, but she didn’t look offended.

“You’re early today,” she offered. They didn’t often make conversation, but it had just gone nine and Phil appeared to be their first customer.

Phil shrugged. “I just woke up early. Figured I should make the most of it.”

“Coffee?”

“Tea, please.”

It wasn’t a coffee morning. Coffee was for haste and intensity, tea was for contemplation.

Phil stared unfocused out of the window. The heating had just been turned on and the glass was starting to steam up.

“Breakfast?” The waitress had returned with Phil’s tea.

“Yeah, maybe actually. What do you have?”

“Toasties or sandwiches or croissants and scones and stuff.”

“How much are toasties?”

“Cheese and ham is two pounds?”

“Ok, yes please.”

She had a lightness in her step that almost looked as if she was dancing. Phil watched her unobtrusively as she worked. She radiated content. Phil was envious.

At around half-nine, once Phil had demolished his toastie and opened up his laptop, the male waiter arrived, his hair damp with mist and beginning to curl. He nodded at the girl and cast an irritated glance over at Phil’s corner.

“Is Ede up?” He asked the girl, and she shook her head.

“Will you make up some more toasties? It’s cold and wet, they’re going to go quickly and Eden clearly didn’t stock up like she promised. We’re out of butter.” She replied.

“You go. I didn’t bring a jacket.”

“Thanks.”

The girl disappeared into the mist with the high pitched drone of the electric door buzzer. Phil and the brown haired boy were left alone, and after a few minutes Phil had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. He glanced up briefly to see the boy leaning on the side of the counter, clearly not doing any work but instead staring directly at Phil’s table. He caught Phil’s eye contact, but did not look away.

Even after Phil’s head had dipped back down, cheeks burning, he could still feel the gaze of the tall boy. He felt suddenly very unwelcome.

The laptop screen was filled with fragments of sentences and paragraphs and thoughts and abandoned trails of hopeless writer’s block. Phil had taken to switching to the document with the completed manuscript of _Of Fires Lit and Candles Dimmed_ whenever anyone would come within eyeshot, to save his dignity. But the fog had cleared his mind somewhat, and he wasn’t going to let this boy get the better of him. He would stay, deliberately and impudently, at least until the girl returned. Phil wasn’t about to be bullied by some teenager with limited career prospects into losing the first tiny hope of inspiration he’d had in a month.

He was writing about the London mist. It wasn’t anything to do with the story he’d been trying to piece together the day before, but at least he was writing – properly and fluently and effortlessly. It would be a beautiful piece he could fit into some story somewhere, or maybe, if he dared hope, he would keep going and going and a story of its own would appear, as if by magic, out of the mist.

He typed fast and with purpose, and over time he forgot about the boy with brown hair and brown eyes and a very, very occasional dimple in his left cheek.

*

Phil didn’t notice the girl return. He didn’t even notice the café fill up, until the smell of a multitude of toasties made his stomach rumble and he finally blinked.

Both waiter and waitress were busy. The boy was grilling and making coffees, and the girl was dancing between the tables taking orders and giving out smiles as if they were flowers. Phil hadn’t budgeted for lunch in a café, but a writing streak was worth a thousand chocolate croissants. Eventually he caught the girl’s eye and ordered. She smiled and promised to return in just a minute, and Phil sat back in his chair to scan critically over the last few thousand words and breathe.

The boy brought the croissant. He set it down in front of Phil without acknowledging him, and headed back to the counter. Phil didn’t mind. He was exuberant. Sure, it wasn’t Shakespeare, but it was the best thing he’d written since moving to London. The croissant was warm and perfectly crisp, the chocolate just beginning to melt. He savoured every mouthful. He would probably get another toastie once the lunch rush had passed. He was at least a little bit considerate, even if he had intruded on the teens’ normally empty morning.

The boy was looking at him again. As the lunchers trickled away, Phil remained. He’d been here nearly five hours now. A new record. He’d bought another toastie though, and the girl certainly didn’t seem bothered by his presence. He’d been a bit tense when it got really busy, but there was always at least one other table free so Phil could argue that he wasn’t losing them any business. If anything, he was filling up the place and making it seem livelier – because it could certainly be insipid when the only noises were the ticking of the clock and the bubble of the coffee machine.

There were only three customers left sipping from their mugs, and Phil was flushed with success. It was about time, he decided, he got to know these people that had unwittingly aided in the best thing to happen to Phil in this great city.

“Thanks,” he said as the girl collected his empty plate. “Sorry, I come here so much. I feel rude. What are your names?” He asked generously.

The girl smiled, but the boy looked up from the counter with a disgusted sneer. Perhaps he thought Phil was flirting with the girl. Phil’s ears reddened.

“I’m Em,” she smiled, blue eyes sparkling. “He’s Dan. What’s your name?”

“I’m Phil. Quite a monosyllabic party we’ve got going on.” Phil laughed, but the girl’s brow furrowed in confusion. Phil instantly felt bad. He was too full of himself after all that writing. He was being obnoxious. In the background, Dan’s sneer widened.

“So, Em, how long have you been working here?” Phil said quickly, starting to sweat.

“Nearly a year now. It’s not so bad.” She had Phil’s plate in one hand and had wiped down the table with the other. She was waiting to leave.

“That’s nice. I just moved here. I’m from the North, originally,” Phil babbled. “This is a really nice place. Good toasties. Nice atmosphere.” A cobweb shivered above the door and the radio that was clearly faulty found static again.

“Thanks. It pays the bills, I guess.”

“Well, I won’t keep you. Thanks for the chat!” Phil smiled idiotically, burying his head behind his laptop as soon as she had turned away.

Dan served Phil for the rest of the afternoon, and Phil left with his tail between his legs, having written less than half as much as he had in the morning.

*

Revived and enthused, Phil set an alarm for nine o’clock so that he could rise early enough to breathe in more of the mist’s magical creative properties. But alas, the morning was bright and clear, and Phil’s eyes were heavy with sleep. He managed only to roll over and pull apart the curtains before plunging back into sleep.

The Emporium was busy. Phil had arrived mid-lunch rush. His table was taken, for the first time ever, and there wasn’t a free spot within cable distance of a power point. The whole time Phil was casting his dismayed eyes around the room, Dan was drying a glass with a tea towel and watching him steadily. Slowly, Phil’s eyes dragged themselves involuntarily to meet Dan’s gaze, then he turned and left, humiliation burning in his cheeks.

How could the teen be so contemptuous? He barely knew Phil, and he was younger. He worked in a coffee shop, for Christ’s sake. Phil was a published author. He just wished there was a way of letting Dan know. Miserably, Phil made his way to Bill’s and dug into a £5 all day breakfast fry-up.

*

Phil couldn’t tell what possessed him to return to the Emporium. He was angry and disgraced. He had to do something to show that Dan boy. Because he needed the Emporium like he needed air. It was, so far, his only hope of surviving this devastating city.

He burst cheerfully through the doors, carefully avoiding the counter, and headed thankfully to his table. Still without looking up, he picked up the laminated menu and scanned it carefully. In his peripheral vision he watched Dan make his way steadily closer, refilling the sugar pots.

“Waiter,” Phil said, his voice foreign and contrived. “I want a coffee.”

The insolence sent a dangerous thrill down Phil’s spine.

Dan straightened up stiffly, his shoulders set in furious disbelief. “Certainly, sir.” He said, barely moving his lips, and rage burned behind his soft brown eyes.

Even without initiating it, a huge grin stretched across Phil’s face. Dan saw it and understood it. He twisted his own into a sarcastic smile, before offering a neat little bow and turning on his heel.

Phil sat back, heart pounding in his chest. This was the most fun he’d had all month. He set up his laptop and waited.

When Dan returned with the coffee he set it down very carefully, turning the handle to face Phil and straightening the napkin. Then he placed his hands on the table and arched his back, leaning forwards to look at the screen, his poise outrageously camp.

Phil burned excitedly with anticipation for the retribution. He smiled graciously up at Dan and waited.

Slowly, deliberately, Dan squinted at the screen. “Are you a wriiiter?” He asked drawing out the word. “That’s so fun. We have a writer in our Café.”

Phil nodded, a smile playing across his lips. “I have a few books out. I just moved to London to work on this one.”

“Oh, gosh. What books have you written? I love to read. Imagine if I’d read some of your work.” Dan blinked, his long eyelashes fluttering slightly.

A delicious trickle of dread ran down Phil’s spine. “Actually, I’m keeping down low at the moment. I don’t want to be disturbed.” He paused, brain whirring frantically. “That’s why I’m here, rather than an upmarket place.”

The sting was visible in Dan’s eyes for less than a moment, but it was there and Phil saw it and held it high above his head victorious.

“That’s funny. You sound very famous, sir.” The word was said so sweetly it seeped disgust into Phil’s pores. “I’d have thought I’d recognise you. Do you have to fight off the paparazzi to get here?”

Dan was clinging to petty jibes and Phil’s victory jiggle turned in to a jive. “I use a pseudonym. I don’t print my portrait, either. It’s just more convenient.”

“That’s funny,” Dan said repeated, pretending to consider. “I mean, the book you put on our shelf the first time you came here had a story in it by someone called P. M. Lester. At least I think that was it. It wasn’t anyone I’d heard of, anyway. It’s just that the card you always pay with belongs to someone called Philip M. Lester. Or is that your one exception, just for fun?”

Phil worked hard to keep the smile on his face, but he knew that Dan was watching it drain from his eyes and revelling in it. “Yeah, something like that. Have you read it?”

“I started it.”

*

Before Phil left, he waited for Dan to look over and poured the dregs of his coffee square onto the table. In response, Dan blew him a kiss. Phil ignored the twinge of guilt as he caught Em’s horrified gaze. It was cold and already growing dark. He’d spent far too long in Eden’s Coffee Emporium. It was a trashy, pathetic little place anyway. He would never go back.


	3. Chapter Three

Phil’s eyes scanned agitatedly across the screen of text. How many more times would he reread it? He’d already phrased and rephrased and reordered every sentence. His left eye twitched, sending his focus wildly off for the briefest of seconds, and Phil blinked. It was his mother, for Christ’s sake. He hit send.

_London is ever the untameable beast. How’s Dusty? I hear he wore the hotdog costume for Luke’s birthday but I don’t recall receiving any pictures. Shocked and upset._

_Writing is going really well, I’ve signed a contract for another short story in a magazine. Carter’s really happy with the deal, but they don’t pay until publication which is a bummer. There so much paperwork and all these meetings and contracts and ugh. I’ve done so much and I’m having the best time ever, I’ve never felt so successful but I haven’t had a penny actually put into my account. Basically, obviously, this isn’t just an ‘I love you how are you text’. I feel rubbish but I’m so scared I won’t be able to pay next month’s rent. Carter keeps promising it’ll be soon but that deadline’s just coming at me like a steam train haha. Would you be able to help me out? Sorry for being the worst son ever. I promise everything’s amazing, the publishing industry is just not very forgiving_ _L_

_Love you lots xxxx_

His parents would only be able to help him so far. They didn’t live in London for a reason – they couldn’t afford to. They certainly couldn’t afford to pay for him to gallivant across one of the most expensive cities in the world as well as paying their own mortgage. Phil’s time living the dream was limited. He wondered how many more months he could reasonably beg his way through, and then how many more after that his mum would scrape for before telling him to come home. The thought made his stomach churn.

Every penny of his parents’ money he wasted on this dream was a penny he wouldn’t have for when he would have to completely reimagine his life plan.

That night, after his mum had transferred the money to his account, Phil found a cheap bar with dirty glasses and drank whiskey until they closed for the night and threw him out into the cold. Not because he liked whiskey, but because it seemed like the right thing to do. He was an author, after all. He was allowed his little romanticisms.

The hangover wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d hoped. He certainly deserved to feel thoroughly miserable. He’d spent £33.50 on being sad about being poor. While that would perhaps make a compelling and tragic character in one of his stories, in real life it was just plain inconvenient. He’d spent the whole evening side eying the other customers and making up backstories and motives and character traits – and writing the good ones down in his expensive leather bound writer’s notebook – but he couldn’t find a single person on his list interesting enough to write a whole story about. Useful for background characters, sure, but he had no place for them to fill.

He’d tried almost every day to continue the story that had started in the mist, but to no avail. It just didn’t want to come. And whenever he thought about it he pictured Dan’s smug little smile and wanted to put his head through the computer screen.

He knew, deep down, that the only place that story would grow would be Eden’s Coffee Emporium. The thought drove him livid. How cruel, that he should be so dependent on that which would seek to hurt him so. The world was unjust, Phil thought angrily as he paced his tiny room. Creative souls were tortured ones.

His mum had given him some spending money on top of what he needed for rent, but he tried to ignore that – imagining how he would survive had he truly struck out on his own. By those calculations, he had £27.80. Tomorrow, he would go talk to a homeless person.

*

The addict took Phil’s £5 and pretended to fall asleep, and the old man appeared to have gone for a wander. The young girl seemed terrified by his request, but perhaps she didn’t speak English. The couple agreed reluctantly to talk, but seemed dubious as to how much they had to offer.

She was Gwen and he was David. They met on the streets, depressed and hopeless. Coming together kept them alive, but it hadn’t saved them. They had some friends and some good times, but it was as hard as everyone said it was. Gwen refused to talk about how she had become homeless. David explained simply that he had been laid off and could no longer pay the rent. He’d sold his possessions to pay for food. He couldn’t get a job because he couldn’t get enough sleep to work properly and couldn’t shower and wash his clothes to be presentable every day and couldn’t give an address for the paperwork.

It wasn’t enough. Phil sat in the Swallowtail and typed out the tale half-heartedly, but he would have to elaborate profusely and take it somewhere else entirely to make it publishable, and somehow, after seeing them in the flesh and hearing their tired voices, he didn’t want to. They had a story, and it was theirs. It was their real lives that they were living every day. It wasn’t fiction. It didn’t fulfil the criteria for a gripping, though provoking novella, because it wasn’t.

Phil went home, ate an orange, and went to bed. He had £12.80 left.

*

The buzzer screamed its note and the warmth hit Phil deliciously in the chest. Dan was barely a foot in front of him cleaning the table by the door, and as he looked up Phil graced him with a wide, deliberate smile. Dan raised an eyebrow, his expression perhaps amused, and turned back to his work. Phil didn’t care. He was on a mission. He ordered a coffee with Em at the counter and made his way to his table. Em’s expression was somewhat stony, but Phil was sure he’d be able to make amends. She had a warmth about her (that the boy Dan lacked), and Phil was certain she had a good heart.

His seat was still warm and he noted the fact with satisfaction. Had he arrived a few minutes earlier his quest would have failed before it had even begun, but the café was busy – if he’d been later the seat would surely have been taken. It was, therefore, fate. He would write because the time was right.

The coffee arrived and he thanked Em somewhat pompously. He would worry about appeasing his servers later, he had more pressing matters to attend.

With glorious efficiency his laptop awoke and opened the document. With grace and great haste his fingers strummed the keys. He was euphoric; he was flying high above the scrapers with the pigeons and the starlings and below him words rushed like cars down the rivers and streams of London’s ever turbid roads.

Pages swept by one after the other. He had written four-thousand words in two hours. He was back on form. A thousand per twenty minutes, with a ten minute allowance for research and editing and contemplation. Milky coffee shivered slightly with the vibrations of people walking past, cold and untouched in the tall white mug. Was the café busy? Was he unwanted? Phil did not know or care. All he cared for was the London mist that swirled across his pages of beautiful manuscript.

In his story, a detective with a sleep disorder walked the mists each morning in search of the drug dealer that brought about his daughter’s destruction. He only had these mornings, for come nine he would be in the office struggling through paperwork as he tried to bring down a tax evader.

Detective McCrae had brown hair and caramel eyes that had seen too much. He wore a trench coat because London winters were cold and it helped him get in the zone. He was good looking and kind hearted, but he didn’t even register the advances of countless colleagues and strangers and friends. His wife had died less than a year after his daughter. His performance at work had not dropped, but outside of work he was a lifeless husk. By now, even his family had stopped trying to call.

A cake was surely justified to celebrate this breakthrough. Em came to his table, perhaps reluctantly, and brought him the strawberry cheesecake he had considered since his first visit. It was better than it looked.

As he devoured the insultingly small slice, Phil watched the two teenagers work.

A rare beam of yellow sunlight streamed in through the large windows and fell across Dan’s shoulders as he swept the floor with a broom too short for his tall frame. His back was bent awkwardly, his limbs long and gangly but not ungraceful. The sunlight caught every strand of stray hair that floated up from the carefully flattened crescent. As the boy straightened up, Phil took in his features: dark brows and lashes. Toffee coloured eyes. A neat nose and chapped, chewed lips. A few scattered freckles or moles. An expression of nonchalance, but underneath was a tiny strain of discomfort.

Em danced between tables. In a brief lapse in business almost every table was empty, and she was clearing them efficiently: balancing an impressive stack of plates on her arm and with a mug hooked around every finger. She stuffed used napkins and torn sugar packets and plastic wrappers into the mugs.

Her eyes were periwinkles and her yellow skin was makeup free. Her hair was swept up into a ponytail that fanned out into a fine, sand-coloured veil as she span. She was petite, and definitely beautiful. Phil decided then and there that he would write her into a story, perhaps even this one. He owed her that much.

Perhaps he would write Dan in, too. With a touch of antagonism.

As his thoughts strayed back to the boy Phil glanced over at the window. The teenager had stopped sweeping and was looking directly at him. Dan didn’t look away. Phil stared straight back, that familiar prick of annoyance stinging his chest.

Phil sincerely hoped he’d be rich enough to afford a better coffee shop soon. Disruption to his work was the last thing he needed.

They stared for what felt like minutes but was probably seconds, until Dan was forced to look away by the call of a customer. Phil turned back to Detective McCrae smug with victory.

*

“You know, if you don’t like the coffee you don’t have to keep ordering. We sell fruit juices.”

Dan’s soft voice made Phil start. He was shoulders deep in a particularly complicated scene in which McCrae was fighting off a skinheaded thug with a knife. Fight scenes were certainly his weakness. He liked long sentences rich with description that flowed like rivers of gold through the reader’s imagination. Action needed to be fast. The second it began to trickle and weave the reader would be lost.

He blinked. Fruit juice? Was that a jibe, was Dan suggesting that Phil wasn’t mature enough for coffee? His cheeks flushed pink.

“Of course I don’t like it, it tastes like my grandma’s piss.” He found himself saying. “I get it for the aesthetic.”

Phil cursed himself silently. He wasn’t normally a mean person. He shied away from conflict and liked to help others wherever possible, but this Dan boy really got under his skin. He played on every inch of Phil’s insecurities – as if he could see straight inside his head.

“Oh, gosh. If she’s anything as sour as you that must be horrible.”

Dan turned and headed for the counter and all at once Phil felt guilty. Perhaps he had misinterpreted. Perhaps the boy was just trying to be friendly, and make amends for their clashes. Phil did like fruit juice. He looked up from behind his screen, but Dan had his back to him.

He sighed, turning back to his manuscript, but for the next hour he could barely string a sentence together. He left as the scrapers were just beginning to eclipse the sun, his mood somewhat deflated but ultimately flushed with success. Eden’s Coffee Emporium was his only hope if he was going to make it in this cruel beast of a city. He would wake up early tomorrow, and pray for mist.


End file.
